The Circle Around The Inner Circle

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dumb ideas page i guess. recovery from trauma and redemptive gay love, inspiration from homestuck and revolutionary girl utena. [cake with 'sorry about the crosslinks' written on it.]

trunnion is the same POI-004D from the 001. the character development between the distant, passive chain-haired girl caught up in the creation of a monster and the single-minded determination of the woman who threw the factory's components to the fire. someone who watched everything she believed in fall to pieces around her and made something new from the ashes.

an isolated young girl and a piece of god that speaks to her. her character's ultimate foundation in compassion, for something far beyond this world that cried to her in pain.

a trapped, passive figure who grew up too fast under the emotionally abusive 'guidance' of the 001's bumaro. often the real protector of the church's members under his figurehead leadership. represses her own emotions.

recognizing bumaro's corruption, realizing the factory will consume everything she cares for - and bumaro will aid it for the sake of his own power. seeking an ancient prophet in greece, but failing to understand the broken figure who awaits her, a person who gave up on grand ideals after the man he once loved died at his hand. having had a position of responsibility forced on her nearly all her life, the concept of being able to lose hope is alien to her, something she struggles to empathize with and even considers selfish.

giving her own relic over to the coalition as a weapon, knowing bumaro is completing his work at the same time. at her lowest point, returning to mexico in the hope of being able to destroy her god alone, something she essentially considers a suicide mission - only to find the prophet there with her, intending to go out with her.

the two mekhanites risen together from the ashes of their god, rebuilding what they held closest, remaking what was broken - and their god with it.

the factory taunted her with the idea that the now-divided church will destroy each other while it watches, everything she worked for falling apart once more - she leaves to meet with the heretics in defiance.

a developing relationship between hedwig and trunnion as a final symbol of defiance of the forces that would have destroyed them both for power, a genuine human connection, not 001 bumaro's lust for power, the ultimate symbol of the god of thought. two women building the heart of god that the factory destroyed together.

yaldabaoth as god of trauma (lord english/akio himemiya influence)

i want to write yaldabaoth as a cosmic villain with more depth than 'scary flesh monster'. the depictions of sarkicism and what ion fought against in the anthropological tale are a big inspiration!

yaldabaoth is the manifestation of an uncaring universe, of endless, meaningless cycles of consumption, of the strong feeding on the weak. in the scripture of the sarvi, the gods the daeva sacrifice their slaves to and justify violent domination for all link back to yaldabaoth, a cosmic progenitor of meaningless abuse and the trauma it leaves. yaldabaoth requires living beings to destroy each other as a precept for its existence, and no world to be possible outside of what it creates. obviously there's a metaphor for real-life systems of oppression here.

ion was, as depicted in proto-sarkic belief, once a fiercely idealistic leader, intending to free slaves from their oppressors and humans from their gods, with the belief all living beings could be saved - despite having experienced the worst abuse of the daeva himself. he came closer to yaldabaoth than any other living being ever would, intending to consume its power to free all - but as the violence of later sarkic cults would imply, the closer ion came to yaldabaoth, the more yaldabaoth became a part of ion. the empire of adytum gradually adopts the social darwinism and conquest of the daeva they once overthrew, leaving the rest of the bronze age world to fight against them as already detailed in sarkic lore.

yet just as ion was corrupted by yaldabaoth's hate, perhaps some part of yaldabaoth was 'corrupted' by ion's love in turn. a new god broken from the whole, a symbol of what humanity has that yaldabaoth, in its infinite power, lacks - the ability to think, grow and change. a god of thought, taking its form in machinery as a symbol of humanity's ability to create. [think utena tenjou's determination to become a prince and her failure to 'save' anthy with that attitude, yet anthy's freedom ultimately gained by utena's genuine love for her for the metaphor here - an abusive system cannot be saved by participation in it, but human kindness ultimately has power beyond the system. ion fails to save the world by taking yaldabaoth's position, but his love for humanity - and for bumaro specifically - is powerful enough to crack the shell of the world of violence yaldabaoth created]

ion's final killer is someone he once knew. a mekhanite prophet he met at the very start of his journey, the ideas they shared together soon to become the basis for faiths that would someday destroy each other. ion had been, in secret, the prophet's greatest human influence, his determination to free people, despite his heretical methods, what inspired his leadership of a small machine-worship cult to the fervent followers of a god they believed would save humanity from the tryanny of the flesh. ion, far stronger than his enemy and by now almost entirely under yaldabaoth's control, willingly lets the prophet kill him in a final moment of lucidity - a decision the prophet would regret more than anything else.

the prophet bumaro as anti-lovecraftian protagonist: someone who saw a world of chaos and horror, anomalies beyond human control or comprehension - and remained kind even at his lowest point. the unknown isn't always fear and hatred but instead the possibility for new life. my your-writing-is-good-but-i-hate-you letter to hp lovecraft.